“Hey, (insert FW character here)! The production needs (marching band music/a one-armed woman/a service dog/an insane old bus driver/an old-timey front porch with a swing) for a big scene! Why sure, your (wife/husband/kids/friend) can be in it too!”. It’s been his plan all along, that diabolical bastard.

I sure am glad that T-Bats is doing this whole Starbuck Jones thing; it’s wicked educational. I had no idea that making a film was so seat-of-the-pants. I thought locations were scouted months in advance so that everything would be ready by the time shooting started.

Aw yiss! What high school wouldn’t want a film production taking place during graduation? Stupid-ass selfish kids, thinking that the ceremony was about them. What a bunch of entitled little bastards. Maybe they can get Mason to give the commencement speech, and Cliff Anger can hand off the diplomas.

27 responses to “[[Jarring Intensifies]]”

If they’re going to shoot the movie in Cleveland, why do they have to go to Westview to film a graduation? I know there are high schools in Cleveland. And the goofymeter gets another couple points added.

Since it’s the first week of May, they’re either going to have to film those scenes in just a few weeks or a year from now. Seems like the kind of thing the studio would’ve wanted to take care of earlier.
Also, there are multiple scenes taking place at a high school graduation? Batiuk really knows what the public wants from their sci-fi epics: boring Ohio scenes. That’s basically all they’ve said about what the movie is actually going to consist of.

Actually they would be, because they would have to keep stopping and starting the graduation and redoing parts because they didn’t get the light right and dear God, Batiuk, do you know ANYTHING about movies at all?

Get a load of Dick Facey, smugly giving his old buddy Mason the OK to allow them to shoot a movie scene DURING graduation, as if he somehow has the authority to do that.

“Oh, by the way, Nate, the SJ movie is filming a full-scale scene during this year’s graduation. Seating for the parents? Liability? Fire codes? Union rules? The school board? I’m fired? Everyone hates me with the passionate fire of ten million exploding universes? No, I’ve never heard of any of those things”.

And it’s been a long time since anything enraged me as much as that Les panel three drawing does, blech. You can just see him oozing with smug superiority because HE knew Mason FIRST, way back when he was so down and out he had to play Les Moore. Why is he even there in the first place? God I despise him so much.

This is only the beginning. “Hey Les, we need to shoot a scene where a widely-despised sweater-wearing moron sits in a gazebo wistfully mourning his dead wife. Know where we can find something like that?”. Mason’s incredible ability to run an entire film production by himself grew tiresome ages ago, but this is especially laughable. “I don’t see why not”…what an asshole. I like how everyone else just grins politely while Les tries and fails to be funny, is he trying to say that graduation ceremonies are boring? I mean sure, I guess they can be, I suppose. But there isn’t really a joke there.

I had the distinct impression (don’t know how I got it) that Starbuck Jones was a space adventure film that took place in a gloriously technological future–flying cars, domed cities on stalks, all the things the Jetsons promised us.

Apparently, though, it’s just a dumpy dull modern era film in which the title character just daydreams his galactic adventures while sitting in a high school auditorium waiting to receive his diploma from Les Moore.

BC: Me too. What POSSIBLE reason could there be to feature a 2016 small town high school graduation ceremony in a far-flung, far-out space cowboy superhero-type flick? As usual, Batiuk has gone to great lengths to guarantee that not even the smallest or least-significant plot points make any sense. There’s just no way it isn’t intentional, it HAS to be.

@BC: “Apparently, though, it’s just a dumpy dull modern era film in which the title character just daydreams his galactic adventures while sitting in a high school auditorium waiting to receive his diploma from Les Moore.”

See my second 4/30 post. It is indeed daydreams all the way down. Just as Wedgeman is Owen<-Les<-Cranky's senile brain firings, so is the whole "Starsuck Jones" thing a string of neural collapses running through Mason Jar-Jar back to Future Nursing Home Ed.

I'd add that to the graphic, but I'm on the road with only a tablet for snarking. Such is life…

Great. More ill-informed nonsense about how EXCITING HOLLYWOOD is and more nonsense about how boring graduations are. Meanwhile, Jffff Murdock is looking at his old house because he finally had to send his mother to the home after she fell and couldn’t get up.

Maybe The Author has decided to repurpose the strip. “Reality be damned”, he thinks. “I’ll purposely include ridiculous plot elements that will drive my critics crazy. That’ll teach them to criticize my brilliance.”

For those of you wondering why the fuck a sci-fi space movie set in the distant future is having it’s initial scenes filmed in Cleveland and Westview High School, always remember this plot is the brainchild of Pietro Rattabastardo…

Someone above (I think Epicus Doomus) reminded us all that Mason Jarr was slotted to play Les in the stupid cell phone movie. If I were Mason, I would be very miffed that Les killed my starring role with his petulance.

So, maybe Mason is setting Les up for a really embarrassing scenario here. I can’t imagine what, as Les has no shame.

Mason: So in this scene, Flash–I mean Starbuck’s ship crash-lands at the high school where he meets Professor Jerkov. Do you mind if half the graduating class is killed?
Les: Not a problem. [SMIRKS PROFUSELY]

I can see it now in a series of wacky events Owen ends up disrupting the shoot but earning himself a role as Stabuck Jones Monkey.
And as far a shooting a real graduation – in real life a nightmare – wouldn’t they have to get the parents or theirs (if they are 18 already) permission before they start filming as well as the schools? None of which Les can deliver.

I got it wrong. Rather than being a big budget movie, this Starbuck Jones thing is something along the lines of a Ray Dennis Steckler movie. They can’t actually afford to construct a scene of a graduation, so they have to hijack a real high school graduation to have one in their movie. Later, Mason and Marianne Winters will be riding in his convertible as they sneak in at the end of Westview’s July 4th parade, claiming in the movie that it’s a parade to celebrate Starbuck Jones for saving the Earth.

Meanwhile, after they shoot the dailies of the graduation, the heretofore non-existent director will get all pissed off watching the rushes because all the audience members were looking right at the camera and grinning like idiots. Or scowling, because this personal celebration that they’ve been waiting for their entire child’s life has just been hijacked by this asshole movie company.